Talk Shows Won’t Fix Education — Early Literacy Will

 

Here are extracts from the talk-show by YB Khairy Jamaluddin.

Malaysia’s grade inflation debate misses the deeper crisis: failing to identify and support intelligent children who struggle with reading early on. Until literacy reform takes priority, more A’s will mean less progress.

We are getting more A’s but our international Benchmarking is getting worse.

Is it because of grade inflation?

These are all views and comments that we hear but no one is incentivized to touch this because parents, students, teachers and the education industry, we have a huge tuition industry, everyone is incentivized to just continue to churn As, and not actually sit down and say, ’Hey, wait a minute, more A’s but Benchmark Internationally we are still doing badly’.

 

I believe the above podcast is nothing more than a political gimmick. This question has been asked repeatedly over the years. Yes, there is grade inflation, and it has been happening for decades. When I sat for my SPM in 1969 and HSC in 1971, hardly any students obtained As. I was among the 12 students in my school who achieved grade 1:1 in MCE (SPM) – grade one for School Certificate and grade one for Malaysian Certificate of Education. By 2025, however, there were 13,000 straight‑A students.

 

Of course, many of these students studied hard.

All my five children were top students at Maktab Sabah. My second son was the top student in the state of Sabah and the only one to receive the Agong’s scholarship in Sabah. My fourth son obtained 15 As in his SPM. They chose to become professionals instead of politicians. But here is the real question: would they have been top students if, by the end of Grade One, the top 20% of intelligent children had been properly identified instead of being mislabeled as “lazy,” “stupid,” or “dyslexic”?

 

As I have explained in my blog posts, Singapore has a dyslexic population of only 3.5–10%, while the rest of the world has around 20%. The difference is not genetic but systemic. Singapore identifies children predisposed to dyslexia as early as kindergarten, giving them a chance to succeed academically and even sit for international assessments like PISA. In Malaysia, many of these children are left behind, waiting to leave school as functional illiterates.

 

This is not just about grades or A’s. It is about literacy. In my books and blog, I have shown why many intelligent children worldwide fail to read in English. They leave school unable to read, yet many go on to become skilled tradesmen, entrepreneurs, and even politicians — some rising to the highest offices, including presidents of countries like the United States. The problem is not their intelligence but the way they were taught. Wrong teaching methods, not phonological deficits or the so‑called “opacity” of English, are the real culprits.

 

If YB Khairy Jamaluddin is serious about education, he should stop treating this issue as a talk‑show soundbite. Grade inflation is only a symptom. The deeper crisis is Malaysia’s failure to identify and support intelligent children who struggle with reading early on. Until we address this, we will continue to churn out A’s for domestic consumption while performing poorly on international benchmarks. If he truly wants to be a minister, he should show genuine interest in reforming education — not just in showcasing his speech talent.